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Suffering.

The question most asked by unbelievers, or more specifically, atheists, is why does a supposedly good God allow all this suffering?

A theologian I am not, but it seems to me that this is not so much of a question of God’s goodness as it is an excuse for people to not believe.

When we cry about all the suffering are we actually thinking about those who are suffering, or are we really thinking about ourselves?
When we cry about suffering from our warm, clean home with food on the table and a comfy bed to sleep in, are we really thinking about those who suffer?

We sit on our thrones of righteousness and blame God for the suffering that He allows, not once do we take a look in the mirror and say “you allow this suffering to happen, you sit there and talk about love and peace and taking care of widows and children, but it is you who should get up off your seat and do something about all the suffering.”
God should fix all of the problems we created, not us.

Has it ever occurred to you that suffering is a part of life?
Has it ever occurred to you that Jesus suffered more than anyone when He died on that cross for you and me?
Nobody seems to be crying about that, Jesus suffered and died so that we wouldn’t have to and it’s just forgotten, we say it but do we think about it.
We acknowledge what was done for us while forgetting how it was done.

When we look at all the suffering and point our finger at God saying “do something, fix this, help them” have you ever stopped and thought that He looks at us and says “do something, fix this, help them.”

The argument used to convince us there is no God is actually no argument at all, it’s an accusation, for an atheist to say “how does a good God allow suffering” is really them questioning God about all the suffering.
That’s like saying “how do good parents allow their kids to suffer the consequences of their actions” they wouldn’t be good parents if they never allowed their kids to learn.
You don’t question the parents existence, you’re just angry about the suffering.
It’s okay to ask God about all the suffering in the world, after all the question concerns His children, but don’t sit in your corner office accusing God of doing nothing, He made you to do something.

If God didn’t allow suffering, would we be free to make our own choices?
Since it is mainly our choices that lead to this suffering.
If God stopped you before you made that bad decision, would you worship Him? I don’t think so, Him stopping you from making your own choice is what you might call a dictatorship.
God allows us to make mistakes so that maybe we will learn from them.
Some of our biggest lessons learned come from a time of hurt and pain and suffering.

How does a child learn how to ride a bike?
By trying over and over again to stay balanced, what is his motivation to stay balanced?
It hurts when he falls.
He would never learn how to ride that bike if he didn’t experience the pain of falling down.

Some of the suffering we see is a direct result of our choices.
Some of the suffering we see is a result of nature and it’s awesome power.
We can’t control a hurricane, we can only bear it, the hurricane causes damage and flooding and suffering.
Blame God for that hurricane?
I don’t think so, this is a broken world, atheist or christian, I think we agree on that, science tells us that we are heading for a global disaster, they keep saying that the Polar ice caps are gonna melt resulting in a “great flood” (I thought that was just a fairytale) this wouldn’t be happening if humans didn’t pollute the earth to the point of destruction, so is it God who allowed the suffering that happens during a natural disaster, or is it us humans that caused that disaster to happen in the first place.

Science tells us we have to do something about global warming or suffer the consequences.
The Bible says we ought to take care of people and love them.
If we sit back and do nothing whilst the suffering continues, who can shake their fist at God, blaming Him for doing nothing, while it’s actually us that sit idle.

Suffering is awful, some of it is avoidable, some of it isn’t.
The presence of suffering is not an absence of God, the argument that says this is rooted in anger, and anger is rooted in fear.
Saying that their can’t be a good God simply because we suffer, is just us shifting the blame from where it belongs into the hands of Someone who can do something about, if He decided to do something about we would accuse him of taking our freedom, because God made humans, if God wanted to make robots so that He could control our every move, He would have.
He made us with a free will to choose where this life takes us.

I don’t want you to think that I’m making light of the suffering that goes on, the people in the world that actually are suffering are in that situation because of the wars their countries are in, some of them are there because this country is in their country fighting a war.
Many are suffering due to a lack of clean water and food, and that is where, if we really care about that suffering, we should be sending our resources to.
If every single one of us here sent a few bucks over there, we would have a lot less suffering to throw in God’s face.

The pain and suffering that happen here will come to an end for each of us, from there our eternity will depend on what we did with that pain and suffering, did we help, did we blame God, did we feel sorry for ourselves, or did we look to the heavens and fully submit to God that we are in need of Him, our stay on earth is temporary, it’s just a road to eternity, where your eternity is, is up to you.

If earth is in between Heaven and Hell, than earth is one of two places, either it’s as close to Heaven as your gonna get or its as close to Hell as your gonna get.
And God gives us the choice.